"The Colorado river is not a patch on this!"

"The Colorado river is not a patch on this!" said our new kayak club coach. But he was joking.

We were making our way down a stream from the old River Lea to the Lea Navigation which we can only attempt when the water is higher than normal and the vegetation is not too much. It is still shallow with a couple of places where you either push yourself along, get out and pull your boat, or rely on someone already out of their boat to pull you. It was amazing that two open canoes managed to get through as, as well as shallow, it is  very narrow (one metre wide in places) with bends.

It is not pretty, especially this time of year, with scrubby growth in mud either side for a few yards, between the concrete walls, with the scruffy warehouses on top.

It is a route I haven't done for several years, and many paddling it yesterday had never done it.

On the adult Hertford Weir trip that afternoon, Aurelia, who hadn't been with us in the morning, said Patrick, her son, had come home all excited..

London is lucky with all its parks, heath and walks. But even scruffy urban green areas are of high value and should not be under-estimated.

You don't have to be in the countryside to enjoy a spring day

What a wonderful spring day!

I went for my cycle ride this morning, not wearing a cycle jacket for the first time this year. The tow path was busier than usual with walkers, joggers and cyclists.

I was very pleased to see all this blackthorn blossom, if this turns to fruit won't have to go to Epping Forest for my sloe gin this year!

I saw a male brimstone butterfly fluttering around this blackthorn.

Picked some rhubarb and had a small rhubarb crumble which was very nice. Even better as last year didn't have any due to the cold spring, and the year before the spring was so dry my one and only crumble was from thin, non juicy sticks of rhubarb.

I also picked some goose grass (cleavers) and made some tea. Virtually colourless and virtually tasteless, but supposed to be a good tonic!

Frog spawn and amaryllis

Two lots of frogspawn in the pond, looking like some dark sago pudding. Last summer never saw more than one frog at a time, and haven't seen a sign of one this year, but obviously there must have been at least two in my pond at the same time at some point recently!

The duck weed used not to survive the winter, but the last few winters it has. Not surprisingly this winter it again survived. I don't try to get rid of it as it protects the frogs in the spring from the neighbourhood cats.

The plant behind, though, died down last winter (its first). It was full of yellow flowers last year. Hopefully some insects took advantage of it, but I didn't see any do so.

Today I had a day off and spent a couple of hours in the garden repotting some conservatory plants, including my amaryllis. With pulling of the bulbs on the outside of the main bulb, I went from 7 amaryllis to 13. In 2 cases there was a lot of disturbance to the roots so likely no flowers from either the parent bulb or the new one this year as they don't like root disturbance. During the time I was out in the garden I didn't see any bees or other insects despite it being mild and dry.

roses already

One in flower in my front garden, and my neighbour has a rose in flower as well.